"Powerful new evidence about the ability of vitamin D to stem a wide range of diseases has brought the prospect of a nationwide programme to prescribe it in Scotland as a dietary supplement significantly closer.

Reports at the weekend suggested that experts were increasingly convinced that the so-called sunshine drug - whose significance was first revealed in detail by The Times last year - could make a difference to the country's appalling health record.

New research suggests that high doses of vitamin D could dramatically cut the relapse rate in people with multiple sclerosis. According to scientists in Canada, more than a third of sufferers taking high levels of supplement

"Dr. Jodie Burton is the acting principal investigator (PI) of the dose-escalation trial of oral vitamin D3 with calcium supplementation in patients with multiple sclerosis with Dr. O'Connor. She started the trial as his fellow, while doing an additional 2 years of training in MS specifically after she received her neurology certification. She completed her fellowship training in 2007. Now she is staff doing clinical research and continuing with the vitamin D trial. As of August 2009, she will be Assistant Professor in Neurology in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience in Calgary and at the University of Calgary. She will be part of the MS team there with Dr. Luanne Metz and the MS group.

Please scroll down for an abstract of the trial: A Phase I/II dose-escalation trial of oral vitamin D3 with calcium supplementation in patients with multiple sclerosis."

"April 28, 2009 (Seattle) -- High doses of vitamin D dramatically cut the relapse rate in people with multiple sclerosis, a study shows.

Sixteen percent of 25 people with multiple sclerosis (MS) given an average of 14,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D a day for a year suffered relapses, says Jodie Burton, MD, a neurologist at the University of Toronto. In contrast, close to 40% of 24 MS patients who took an average of 1,000 IU a day -- the amount recommended by many MS specialists -- relapsed, she says.

Also, people taking high-dose vitamin D suffered 41% fewer relapses than the year before the study began, compared with 17% of those taking typical doses.

People taking high doses of vitamin D did not suffer any significant side effects, Burton tells WebMD."